Government iPad Activations Up 5%

State and federal customers are ramping up iPad use, says enterprise mobile software firm Good Technology.

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Government and public sector enterprises turned on 5% more iPads between April and June, despite recording only a 1% increase overall in mobile device activations, according to Good Technology.

"We continue to see Android climb, but government is focused on iOS," said Chris Roberts, VP of public sector at Good Technology.

Good's quarterly Mobility Index Report is not a survey but a statistical abstract of activity from customers of its enterprise platform for managing mobile devices and apps. The report doesn't cover BlackBerry devices, which have their own management platform, or Windows tablets, which are managed more like laptops. Windows Phone activations show up in the report, but at just 1% of total device activations. The index covers all industries, but the result for public sector customers was one of the standouts, Roberts said.

"Much like e-government seemed revolutionary, now we're moving to mobile government -- the last mile," Roberts said. Federal agencies have "moved farther and faster with mobility," partly on the strength of more consistent guidelines for how mobile devices should be deployed, compared with state and local government, he said.

Good Technology Tablet Activations(Source: Good Technology)

The iPad numbers reflect an increased interest in using tablets for government functions. Android tablets still suffer from a long-term perception that they are less secure, although that may start to change as more organizations "are moving forward and not suffering the catastrophic results everyone predicted," he said. Over time, attention should start to shift to "the specs of the device, as opposed to the logo on it," he said.

Across all industries, Good reported that Android device activations jumped significantly quarter over quarter, increasing 5% to 32% of total activations, while iOS activations decreased 5% and recorded 67% of total activations. For enterprise app (as opposed to device) activations, iOS had 88%, down 4% from the prior quarter, while Android had 12%, according to Good.

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The consumer is the first player to test a product in terms of security and functionality, etc. Once, the consumer market has tested and used a product for a certain number of years, it becomes easier for the government to implement the device type. In which case, in years to come, Android will increase the number of devices that it has in the public sector.